Jonathan Lee Krohn is posting some wonderful photographs on his Twitter feed at Stone Mountain, Georgia, where a Confederate flag rally is underway. It looks like everyone is having a good time. As to what exactly is being commemorated…well…that has yet to be determined.

My knowledge of the Confederate army is confined mainly to the Army of Northern Virginia. As I sketch out my cultural biography of Silas Chandler, however, I am running into my limited understanding of the Army of Tennessee. Silas’s master, Andrew Chandler, served in Co. F of the 44th Mississippi Infantry up to the battle of Chickamauga in 1863. He then served Andrew’s brother in the 9th Mississippi Cavalry Regiment, which accompanied Jefferson Davis after he abandoned Richmond in April 1865. That’s another story.

Silas and Andrew were together for some of the major battles such as Shiloh in which the latter was taken prisoner and Chickamauga, where Andrew was wounded. According to stories Silas supposedly convinced a doctor in Atlanta not to amputate his owner’s leg and used coins stitched in his jacket to pay for passage for the two to return home to Mississippi. Continue reading →

I’ve said before that if I could do it all over again I would have pursued a career in public history and worked at a historic site. The deepest connections with- and opportunities to encourage careful thinking about the past has the best chance of taking hold on site. Having left the high school history classroom this past spring I am hoping to join a historic site in the Boston area in some capacity.

Congratulations to Taneka Lewis, who has been crowned Miss RebelFest 2015. Beyond this I don’t really know what else to say.

Perhaps I should just let the organizers speak for themselves:

On behalf of the Carolina Rebels Motorcycle Club – Sumter Chapter, we would like to congratulate the newly crowned Miss Rebelfest 2015, Taneka Lewis. Taneka was chosen Miss Rebelfest by the attendees of this year’s event. We look forward to having her as Miss Rebelfest for the upcoming year. Her strong spirit, along with her contagious personality, not to mention, she’s easy on the eyes, should make for a fun and exciting year! In a society that has labeled the confederate flag and the flag’s supporters a symbol of racism and divide; we feel we must also address what will eventually be ask sooner or later: Why is a organization that is called the Carolina Rebels which supports the Confederate flag as a symbol of Southern heritage, have an African American woman as their representative? Well, that is easy. Ms. Lewis was not denied nor was she chosen on her skin color. She was chosen by the many in attendance simply because she best resonated with them. She won with 80 percent of the votes. We are very excited and proud to introduce you to our new reigning Miss Rebelfest 2015, Taneka Lewis!

Last month I shared a brief update concerning my book manuscript on the history and memory of Confederate camp servants and black Confederates. At the time I was weighing the strengths and weaknesses of different narrative forms. As it stood the narrative lacked focus not in the sense that the evidence was not organized, but that the lives and experiences of camp servants remained inaccessible to the reader. Readers meet a large number of camp servants/slaves during the war and in the postwar period, but they are almost all snippets of rich lives shared in passing by their owners and others. I want readers to be able to identify with an individual.

As I mentioned in that earlier post the one exception is Silas Chandler. Having experimented with different narrative approaches to highlighting his life and memory throughout the manuscript I decided to start over and write a cultural biography of Silas. This change is not something that I joyfully embraced so late in the process, especially because I have never written such a book, but I am beginning to see the benefits of doing so. Continue reading →